


Follow You into the Dark

by fiveyaaas



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Drabble, F/M, One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts, Vanya is a ghost, but I tagged it as major character death bc of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25998535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: ““Five,” she shrieked, but he hadn’t heard her. He saw Klaus’s body then, and Vanya was struck with the realization that the only way Five could have heard her was if Klaus had been alive to speak for her. As he fell to his knees, she did as well.“
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 11
Kudos: 123
Collections: The umbrella academy





	Follow You into the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I put a prompt up in the discord of Vanya following Five around as a ghost, and I decided to just write a super short one shot for it 🤷🏻♀️  
> Warning that Five is suicidal in this, but the major character death tag was just because Vanya is a ghost and it’s the apocalypse.

She did not know how long it was before she saw Five at the end of the world. She just knew that one second he was stumbling over the corpses of his siblings, and the next she was screaming his name. 

“ _ Five _ , I’m sorry!” Tears wouldn’t form, and she didn’t understand. She had stayed at the Icarus stage this entire time, and tears would never come.

“Five,” she repeated. She reached out to touch him, but her hands moved through him. 

She gasped. No, no. She  _ couldn’t  _ be dead. She couldn’t be dead. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

“ _Five,”_ she shrieked, but he hadn’t heard her. He saw Klaus’s body then, and Vanya was struck with the realization that the only way Five could have heard her was if Klaus had been alive to speak for her. As he fell to his knees, she did as well.

* * *

Five was a pragmatist. Vanya had never really thought much of this, how Five would be able to survive, but he set to survival immediately. She followed him along as he started finding foods that would expire first. 

He was muttering to himself, and she wanted to ask him to speak louder so that she could hear what he was saying. 

Five hadn’t found her body or Ben’s, and he was holding out hope. She tried to find ways to get him to Ben’s crumbled statue. He didn’t hear. Obviously. 

“I’ll find them,” he muttered. “Ben would protect Vanya, _someone_ would have to be with her. Maybe they’re in a bunker somewhere, did we have any shelters? I’ll find them. It’ll be okay.”

“You won’t,” Vanya reminded him, but he didn’t even glance over at her. She studied his face. It had probably been only a day or two for him since he had run out of the house. He was still thirteen, so he obviously hadn’t been there before it was a wasteland. 

She wondered if she could help him gather food somehow. Klaus said once that the stories of ghosts making lights flicker or faucets turn on were sometimes true, telling the others as they gathered in the library (and she looked on, separate from them) that it was always the ghosts who were bored out of their mind that did it. There were no lights she could flicker or faucets to turn on. She wondered if her power would allow her to get a few of the water bottles he hadn’t noticed for him. She walked off from Five’s annoyed body to go focus her energy on them. 

“Come  _ on _ ,” she said, biting her lip. She focused all of her power, pushing her hand out to help.

A water bottle jerked, very faintly. Five heard the noise though, whirling around. He brushed past her, walking right through her, seeing the pile of water bottles and making a contented noise.

He lifted one of the bottles, already chugging it down. He had had to stop multiple times as he was burying bodies, wiping off sweat from his forehead with his jacket sleeves. 

He didn’t question that something had made noise with nobody around. He was just content to have water. He realized about halfway through the bottle that he would have to ration it, and he made a saddened sound, pulling the bottle from his lips. 

“I’ll help you find more,” she told him quickly. “Don’t worry yet.” 

Five grabbed the wagon with some supplies he had gathered, piling on the water bottles. Vanya settled against the wagon, knowing it would cause no weight to be added. He was quiet right now, not sharing his thoughts. She was sad, knowing he wouldn’t talk to himself always. She wished there was a way to get him to talk.

“I know that you’ll be mad at me,” Vanya told his back because it was easier when she couldn’t see the blankness when she spoke. “I’ll understand if when you go back, you have to kill me before I kill them. I’ll understand. I won't be mad at you once I’m myself, I promise.” 

Five kept walking. 

“I’m glad that I died,” she admitted. “I know that you wouldn’t be happy to hear that, but I deserved it.  _ I  _ did this. If you got rid of me before I was capable…”

“I’m just saying I’d understand,” she told him a few minutes later.

* * *

Five was trying to open a can of soup with a knife. 

“I told you that there was a can opener twenty paces ago,” Vanya said, crossing her legs and sitting next to him. “I wish you could hear me. But I know you don’t have Klaus’s pow-”

His hand slipped, cutting a gash in his hand. He was bleeding. Vanya cursed, searching around for something he could clean the cut with. 

When she found a pharmacy, she made a fire start up near the entrance, shocked she was able. She imagined it was the panic. Five had been stumbling around in search of something to clean up, jacket wrapped around the wound and holding pressure. He saw the fire suddenly start outside of the pharmacy and jerkily walked over to the fallen building. 

He sucked in breath as he saw all the medical supplies, gathering wildly. He stopped for a second, remembering his purpose and grabbing a small bottle of rubbing alcohol and pouring it on the cut. 

“Someone out there must be looking out for me, huh,” he said softly to himself.

* * *

Five had been there three months before he started to really experience mentally the lack of sleep, food, or other people. 

He looked at the knife that he had injured himself with in an attempt to open a can, and he seemed to  _ consider _ .

Vanya threw a rock in the direction of the library where she had seen her book. 

Five made a soft noise, following the rock in confusion. 

She made a couple of the shelves crumble, hoping he would take it for decay. It led him down a trail to the book. She hopes he will see it. She can’t speak to him, but she knew she had said basically only kind words about him.

He found it, doing a familiar double take as he did. He snatched up the book. 

She remembered a lifetime ago when he had kissed her quickly, saying he knew the equations that would allow him to travel time. They would never have a chance to know what that could have been. 

The knife was forgotten though, while he read her words hungrily.

* * *

He considered it again a year later, this time with a gun. That’s when she introduced him to Delores. She had found the mannequin at one point, and she was getting desperate with how to comfort him. When he found Delores, he introduced himself pleasantly. Psychosis had set in at this point; Five had no idea he was not speaking to a real person. 

The gun was forgotten though. She watched him sadly, wondering how she could fade away completely. He wouldn’t even know that he was supposed to miss her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
